Reviews for Optio SV

I only know the review from Steve's digicam web.

Do you know any other review?

When a review in dpreview?

Thanks.

ToniP said:

I only know the review from Steve's digicam web.

Click to expand...

I think maybe Steve was lazy when he reviewed the Optio SV. Most of the nits have to do with any camera being this small causing ergonomic problems (eg. Getting your nose squished if you stick your left eye into the view finder).

More important is that the quality is definitely up there and it has low distortion, great color, et al.

The only show stopper is if you want to take rapid fire shots, like your dog leaping in the air. In Steve's tests, he said it took around 4 seconds between shots. This is partly based on a number of parameters that Steve never gave a good explanation about. Geee, wouldn't you want to know why? I would. Maybe there is a work around, like everything else in life. The camera is too new to have enough collective experience reporting on fixes for its eccentricities.

Anyway, if the memory card is responsible, it would have been great if Steve had tried different brands/models of cards. Steve used the Sandisk Exreme II SD card. I am not fond of that card. But it would have been great if he also tried others. I personally like the Delkin but the new Sandisk Extreme III, with 20MB/s transfer rate is one I would like to test.

ATP Pro SD
http://flash.atpinc.com/product/sd_spec.php

DELKIN eFILM PRO SD
http://www.delkin.com/delkin_products_memorycards_pro.html

Sandisk Extreme III SD (20MB/s Read/Write}
http://www.sandisk.com/retail/ext3-sd.asp

According to Steve's review, a picture (1.5 MB more or less) is saved in 4 seconds.
Sandisk Ultra II is able to be written at 9 MB/s.

So, if the rate was only limited by card, the picture should be written
in 0.2 seconds. The rest of the time is dedicated to postprocessing(?).

If you use an Estreme III card (20 MB s), you will save the pic. in 0.1seconds, so the total time will be 3.9 seconds. Improvement is low.

The problem is how to reduce the amount of time in postprocessing.

Maybe is possible depending on the options you select in programable parameters.
Or maybe is not possible. Pentax should serch another balance between
quality(that depends on postprocessing) and postprocessing time.

Please, any owner of Optio SV can tell us if is possible reduce the shot-to-shot time changing any parameters?

Coastal Trader said:

ToniP said:

I only know the review from Steve's digicam web.

Click to expand...

I think maybe Steve was lazy when he reviewed the Optio SV. Most of
the nits have to do with any camera being this small causing
ergonomic problems (eg. Getting your nose squished if you stick
your left eye into the view finder).

More important is that the quality is definitely up there and it
has low distortion, great color, et al.

The only show stopper is if you want to take rapid fire shots, like
your dog leaping in the air. In Steve's tests, he said it took
around 4 seconds between shots. This is partly based on a number of
parameters that Steve never gave a good explanation about. Geee,
wouldn't you want to know why? I would. Maybe there is a work
around, like everything else in life. The camera is too new to have
enough collective experience reporting on fixes for its
eccentricities.

Anyway, if the memory card is responsible, it would have been great
if Steve had tried different brands/models of cards. Steve used the
Sandisk Exreme II SD card. I am not fond of that card. But it would
have been great if he also tried others. I personally like the
Delkin but the new Sandisk Extreme III, with 20MB/s transfer rate
is one I would like to test.

ATP Pro SD
http://flash.atpinc.com/product/sd_spec.php

DELKIN eFILM PRO SD
http://www.delkin.com/delkin_products_memorycards_pro.html

Sandisk Extreme III SD (20MB/s Read/Write}
http://www.sandisk.com/retail/ext3-sd.asp

Click to expand...

ToniP said:

According to Steve's review, a picture (1.5 MB more or less) is
saved in 4 seconds.
Sandisk Ultra II is able to be written at 9 MB/s.

So, if the rate was only limited by card, the picture should be
written
in 0.2 seconds. The rest of the time is dedicated to
postprocessing(?).

If you use an Estreme III card (20 MB s), you will save the pic.
in 0.1seconds, so the total time will be 3.9 seconds. Improvement
is low.

The problem is how to reduce the amount of time in postprocessing.

Click to expand...

You are right about the post processing being key. But I believe you are wrong about the calculation of the transfer rate, which assumes no resistance or wait states.

I did some research on this when I bought a Sandisk USB Flash Drive. That device and the SD mamory card share the same technology - NAND memory. The card uses an algorithm that distributes the data in rows so that the memory will wear out evenly. Also, its not a one large continuous transfer, where data is streamed non-stop from start to end. Its done in bursts with the SD card sending pauses to the camera to stop, then start, then stop, etc. The total transfer time is extended by all these duty cycles that slow it down. Here is the white paper from Sandisk that explains it.

http://www.sandisk.com/pdf/oem/WPaperWearLevelv1.0.pdf

Bottom Line: Not all SD cards share the same architecture and overhead for storing its data internally. It all depends on the engineering design, and therefore, not all 10MB/s SD cards have to be the same. For example, a better NAND memory or some other storage core that didn't need a wear algorithm.

My 2 cents, FWIW.

I got the Panasonic 20 GB/s cards when in Japan (both the 512 MB and the 1 GB version) for my SV, and the SV was decent. The processing time, flash charge, etc. were more of the bottlenecks, but I got decent shot to shot.

How much time is "decent" for you?

FenderP said:

I got the Panasonic 20 GB/s cards when in Japan (both the 512 MB
and the 1 GB version) for my SV, and the SV was decent. The
processing time, flash charge, etc. were more of the bottlenecks,
but I got decent shot to shot.

Click to expand...

ToniP said:

How much time is "decent" for you?

Click to expand...

I didn't time it, but I was never waiting for the camera for the most part, other than, say, if I had the exposure set to 8 seconds or whatever. I don't need sub-second shot to shot time; I'm not looking to do a series.

I showed my pics to some friends yesterday from my Japan trip and they liked them.

Please go to the following URL and click the side bar entitled:

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT MEMORY CARD X RATINGS.

http://www.delkin.com/delkin_products_memorycards_pro.html#

EXCERPT:

Using The X Rating To Determine Memory Card Speed

Many CompactFlash memory cards for digital cameras have a number followed by an "X" (i.e. 24X, 40X) appearing either on the packaging or card label. This X rating is meant to give you a tool to determine "how fast" the card is. Unfortunately, advertising card speed with an X rating can be confusing for the consumer since there are many factors for measuring memory card speed in a camera that the X rating doesn't address. In many cases it can actually be misleading to the photographer who is looking for the fastest memory card for their digital camera. The purpose of this document is to educate and clear up some of the misunderstandings associated with the X rating.
Understanding speed in your camera

If you want to take pictures faster so your time between clicks (when you first press the shutter button and can press it again) is shorter, then an X rating on a memory card may not be of much help. An X rating has little to do with how fast a card performs in a camera. The X rating is primarily a computer-tested measurement that determines the time it takes files to transfer to and from your memory card to your computer. This can be confusing for photographers looking to measure memory card speed in relation to "between click" time. Between click time relates to the file transfer rate between the memory card and the camera's processor, which is measured in megabytes per second (MB/SEC). Currently very few digital cameras on the market are able to achieve speeds greater than 4 MB/SEC. Digital cameras have different processors, which will vary widely. Professional grade SLR cameras have an internal memory buffer that affects between click times and enables you to keep taking pictures while files are being written to the card.

QUESTION:

Does the manufacturer ever publish the transfer rate in Megabytes/Second to-from the Memory Card.

What is it for the Pentax Optio (SV, S5i, 750Z, ... ) ???

Coastal Trader said:

Using The X Rating To Determine Memory Card Speed

Click to expand...

'1X' actually stands for 150 Kbytes per second, so just multiply by that to get the transfer rate. Trouble is, there can be quite a difference between the actual speed of the memory interface and the rate at which the flash memory delivers/accepts data, which may be buffered up to a limit in high speed memory. The important spec for large image files is continuous writing speed. And very few camera manufacturers actually use all the speed that the fast cards have anyway.

Coastal Trader said:

QUESTION:

Does the manufacturer ever publish the transfer rate in
Megabytes/Second to-from the Memory Card.

Click to expand...

ANSWER: I've never seen this information provided by a manufacturer. Reviewers, such as Phil, do try to come up with a rating, but that usually is slower than the actual transfer rate as it includes at least some of the processing time.

Coastal Trader said:

What is it for the Pentax Optio (SV, S5i, 750Z, ... ) ???

Click to expand...

I have tried to measure the actual transfer time while the transfer LED's are flashing using TIFF format for the Optio 450/550/550/750 and come up with approximately 3 MBytes per second which is 20X. As the shot to shot times with the SV and S5i are somewhat greater, it may be that either the transfer times are slower (less likely) or more likely the image processing speed is less.

Regards, GordonBGood

GordonBGood said:

I have tried to measure the actual transfer time while the transfer
LED's are flashing using TIFF format for the Optio 450/550/550/750
and come up with approximately 3 MBytes per second which is 20X.
As the shot to shot times with the SV and S5i are somewhat greater,
it may be that either the transfer times are slower (less likely)
or more likely the image processing speed is less.

Click to expand...

Without the manufacturer's assistance, someone would have to dismantle the camera and probe the interface to the SD memory. Sounds like fun but I'm not going to experiment with my purchase. The unit is brand spanking bew, I'll wait until there are firmware upgrades. In the mean time, I'm not complaining. I see no product that is perfect in any of these forums. As long as the image quality doesn't go south on me, then I'll be relatively happy. All in all, for the size its got 5 Mega Pixels and 5X zoom in a small package, which fit my needs. With those Pros, I can live with the Cons.